The CS-Ed Podcast

In this episode, we got to continue talking to Dr. Beth Simon about peer instruction from the prior episode's peer instruction Teaching Practice Byte. Our host, Kristin Stephens-Martinez, shares her experience with peer instruction and asks Beth for help to improve. The episode ends with three main takeaways that Kristin has since used in her course. See the transcript on the website (https://csedpodcast.org/blog/s4e7_peer_instruction/)

Peer instruction is a way to move the easy-to-learn content to before lecture, so you can spend more time during lecture on developing understanding. In this teaching practice byte, we talk to Dr. Beth Simon from UC San Diego about peer instruction, what context she's used it in, how she does it, and nuanced details that aren't always discussed when reading about this active learning technique. See the transcript on the website (https://csedpodcast.org/blog/s4e6_tpb_peer_instruction/)

In this episode, we have Dr. Barbara Ericson, assistant professor from the School of Information at the University of Michigan. Our topic is Parson's Problems, which are like mixed-up code chunks that students need to put in the correct places. We discuss the research behind them, how she uses them in her class, and her current work investigating how to use Parson's Problems to improve student learning. See the transcript on the website (https://csedpodcast.org/blog/s4e5_parsons_problems/)

Philip Guo, an Associate Professor of Cognitive Science at the University of California, San Diego, built Python Tutor, which is neither just for Python nor really a tutor. It's actually a tool to visualize what code is doing! In today's episode, he talks about the other programming languages it supports (Java, C, and C++), gives examples of how he uses it, and explains the nuances of when to use it. See the transcript on the website (https://csedpodcast.org/blog/s4e4_tpb_coding_tutor/)

In this episode, we talk with Professor Adam Blank, Teaching Professor of Computing and Mathematical Sciences at Caltech. Our conversation focuses on college teaching faculty that only have a master's degree by discussing how the job title should be about a person's skills and knowledge, as opposed to the degrees they hold. We start off by defining terms, then move on to what a teaching faculty actually does and needs to know to do the job and how a Ph.D. is a proxy for signals that could be seen with different evidence. See the transcript on the website (https://csedpodcast.org/blog/s4e3_teaching_faculty_job_title/)

Teaching Practice Byte (TPB): In our first TPB episode we invite Colleen Lewis back to the podcast to talk about her physical models of Java that help her teach students how Java objects work. Colleen was originally on our podcast way back in Season one! We go into detail about what kinds of classes she uses these models in, what the models are, how she uses them, where they would and would not work, and where the idea came from. See the transcript on the website (https://csedpodcast.org/blog/s4e2_tpb_physical_java_models/)

We are kicking off season 4 with a deep conversation on academic misconduct with Dr. Oluwakemi Ola from the University of British Columbia, Vancouver Canada, and Dr. Mia Minnes from the University of California, San Diego. This episode was inspired from a panel we were on at the 2023 SIGCSE Technical Symposium called "Who's Cheating Whom: Changing the Narrative Around Academic Misconduct." In this episode, we go into more detail as we discuss how academic misconduct is handled at our respective institutions, how it impacts us, how our thinking about misconduct has changed over time, what we do to teach our students about misconduct, and how the systems around us influence our and the students' decisions around misconduct. See the transcript on the website (https://csedpodcast.org/blog/s4e1_academic_misconduct/)

Hello All! This is the CS-Ed Podcast. A podcast where we talk with educators about teaching computer science! We are gearing up for season 4 and we have big plans! First, we've created a Patreon! Yes, that's right, the podcast is moving to become self-sustaining through audience support. If you'd like to keep this podcast ad and sponsor free, please consider becoming a Patreon member. Of course, please only chip in within your financial abilities. Think of it as buying the podcast a coffee or lunch once a month. I try to keep costs down to a minimum, but there are still costs to producing this podcast, even if I'm not paying myself. Your support would be much appreciated. Patreon members will get direct access to me to give feedback on the podcast, and I'll post exclusive content on what's coming up! You can find us at patreon.com/csedpodcast, that's patreon.com/csedpodcast. The link is also in this podcast description and on our website. In addition, mixed in with our usual long-form deep conversations, we are going to bring in a new kind of episode TPB's, teaching practice bytes, that's bytes with a Y! Where I talk with a fellow CS educator about a practice they have in their classroom. And this is where you come in, my dear audience members. If you have or know someone with a good teaching practice, I'd love to hear about it! Please reach out to the podcast's email address at csedpodcast@gmail.com or my own email address at ksm@cs.duke.edu And that's it for now. Please look out for the first episode of season 4 coming out soon. We are talking academic misconduct! Also, consider joining our Patreon at patreon.com/csedpodcast, and please reach out if you've got a good teaching tip or practice you'd like to share. Take care of yourself, and you'll hear from me again in this podcast feed soon.

How do you infuse a class to engage students with socially responsible computing? Kathi Fisler from Brown University discusses Brown’s undergraduate teaching assistant (UTA) program, where they hired UTAs to specifically focus on finding ways to do just that in the classes they were embedded in. In this episode, we talk about the program, how she teaches socially responsible computing in her intro computer science (CS) classes, and how her goal is to get students to ask the right questions. While she also lets go of needing to know the answers or even how to answer the questions. See the transcript on the website (https://csedpodcast.org/blog/s3ep12_socially_responsible_computing/)

This episode features Amy Ko et al.'s online book Critically Conscious Computing: Methods for Secondary Education. We discuss with Amy what is in the book, who the book is for, and how educators can use the book in their own teaching. The book focuses on contextualizing the history of computer science and how that history shows that computing is not neutral. In addition, it provides unit sketches to help teachers bring in more design critical conscious discussion into how they teach CS that will hopefully help all of our students better understand how computing affects our world. See the transcript on the website (https://csedpodcast.org/blog/s3ep11_critically_conscious_computing/)

Join us in a conversation with Iris Howley from Williams College about Primarily Undergrad Institutions (PUIs). Where we talk about what a PUI is, the research and teaching expectations, what the interview cycle is like, and compare a PUI professor with a teaching track professor. The biggest takeaway from this episode is that PUIs exist, they don't look like the school someone is getting their Ph.D. at, and they are an option post-graduation. More info is at http://bit.ly/cspui-jobs Finally, make sure to check the deadlines soon. They usually interview in the fall! See the transcript on the website (https://csedpodcast.org/blog/s3ep10_primarily_undergraduate_institutions/)

In this episode, Sarah Heckman from North Carolina State University and our host discuss the Peer Teaching Summit at SIGCSE Technical Symposium 2022. We cover what a peer teacher is, more commonly known as an undergraduate or graduate teaching assistant, and how they support student help-seeking. The summit brought together many people with peer teachers at their schools where they discussed what they can and cannot do, and how every school is unique. Afterward, we focused on office hours and how there was a surprising variety of handling them, including what information students see in the office hour queuing app while they wait in the queue, what information peer teachers see, and the rules the peer teachers use to decide who is pulled off the queue next. See the transcript on the website (https://csedpodcast.org/blog/s3e9_peer_teaching/)

AIICE stands for Alliance for Identity Inclusive Computing Education. It is an organization dedicated to "empowering the next generation of computer scientists by eliminating systemic barriers." This episode is with Dr. Shaundra (Shani) B. Daily, Ph.D., the backbone director of the organization. We discuss how she and her Co-PI, Dr. Nicki Washington, Ph.D., and past podcast guest, wrote the grant that started it all, how we should stop trying to "fix" students, that we should instead focus on fixing the systems that "requires" "fixing" students, and about their 3C program, a professional development program that is part of trying to make systemic change. See the transcript on the website (https://csedpodcast.org/blog/s3e8_alliance_for_identity_inclusive_computing_education/)

In this episode, we talk with Amogh Mannekote, a Ph.D. student at the University of Florida. He and others analyzed class forum data from three very different classes and discovered that a lot of factors influence how students use the class forum, including the kind of class assignments, the accessibility of other sources of help, and how the instructor or TAs answer questions on the class forum. After doing this work, he also strongly believes that instructors should download and analyze their data or we should create more "out of the box" open source tools that do this for instructors. In addition, students need to be encouraged to use the class forum effectively and TAs need explicit instructions on how to interact with students on the class forum. See the transcript on the website (https://csedpodcast.org/blog/s3e7_class_forums/)

Here’s episode two of our two-part series on teaching associates! A teaching associate is a teaching support staff position here at Duke University. This episode is a conversation with Yesenia Velasco. We talk about how her role is different than Kate O’Hanlon from our last episode, reflect on how Duke did at its first attempt at such a position, and look towards the future of where such a position can go. See the transcript on the website (https://csedpodcast.org/blog/s3e6_teaching_support_staff_2/)

Teaching Associate, what's that? In this two-part series's first episode, we talk with Kate O'Hanlon, a teaching associate in the computer science department at Duke University. Teaching associates are department staff positions that support the large enrollment classes. We discuss the four primary teaching associate responsibilities: project manager, student outreach, developer, and instructor. In addition, we discuss the underlying goal when Duke created the position and the needed flexibility within the role. This episode is part of a two-part series. The second episode will be with another teaching associate, Yesenia Velasco, to reflect on Duke's first attempt at such a position and some future thinking about where the position can go. See the transcript on the website (https://csedpodcast.org/blog/s3e5_teaching_support_staff_1/)

Today's episode is with Richard Ladner from AccessComputing and AccessCSforAll, Professor Emeritus from the University of Washington. Our discussion focuses on accessibility. How do we improve accessibility in our teaching? What do AccessComputing and AccessCSforAll do? And how do we be considerate of our students that are hard of hearing, blind, or have some other accessibility need? Edited by Michael Ball See the transcript on the website (https://csedpodcast.org/blog/season3_episode4/)

In this episode, we talk with Michael Ball from the University of California, Berkeley. Our focus is on undergraduate teaching assistants (TAs), which Berkeley has a long history of. Michael goes into detail about what Berkeley TAs do, the TA hierarchy, and TA training. We learn about a small core group of students that make an undergraduate career out of being TA. Another question we focus on is advice to an institution that is just starting its TA program. Finally, throughout our talk, we discuss how things are different from before the pandemic and now. See the transcript on the website (https://csedpodcast.org/blog/season3_episode3/)

In part two of our episode series with Kevin Lin and Brett Wortzman from the University of Washington, we dig into the details of how they implement their alternative grading systems. Brett outlines their ESNU system that stands for exemplary, satisfactory, not yet and unaccessible, as well as the components of his grading system for his large CS1 course, and Kevin talks about his version from his CS2 and other data structures courses. We discuss trading off complexity for precision and how much differentiation in grades is actually feasible and necessary. We also talk about grading workload and balancing the convenience of autograding with the depth of feedback from manual grading. Kevin emphasizes how grading “bundles” can provide more clarity for students on what the expectations are for each grade. Finally, both Kevin and Brett emphasize considering constraints, priorities, and tradeoffs in choosing a grading system for your own class. If you haven’t yet, consider listening to the first episode of the series on why to consider alternative grading and the potential systems to choose from! See the transcript on the website (https://csedpodcast.org/blog/season3_episode2/)

In a two-part episode series, we talk with Kevin Lin and Brett Wortzman from the University of Washington about alternative grading practices. In this episode, we focus on the purposes and goals of grading and discuss different types of grading systems. We dig into the philosophy of Kevin and Brett’s grading approach, how it can work in very large courses, and how to get buy-in from students on an unfamiliar system. Kevin mentions the importance of focusing on equity and defining what exactly that means, and Brett emphasizes that grading should align with the course’s learning outcomes. We close by thinking about what we can hope to gain by implementing a new grading system and who our choices impact. Be sure to listen to part two as well! See the transcript on the website (https://csedpodcast.org/blog/season3_episode1/)